


Spencer Deschanel

by Schuyler



Category: Bandom
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-08
Updated: 2010-05-08
Packaged: 2017-10-15 07:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schuyler/pseuds/Schuyler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emily is the calm and collected one, Zooey's the rebel, Spencer's the surprise baby, and Ryan's one of them too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spencer Deschanel

**Author's Note:**

> I think this is the spiritual successor to Mama Liza. It's the same concept, applied differently. Or I'm having fever dreams again. If you are unfamiliar with the Deschanel sisters or their relation to Spencer, I have made a [handy graphic](http://pics.livejournal.com/schuyler/pic/000kh56f).

Spencer was a surprise, to say the least. The Deschanels had left ten year old Emily and six year old Zooey with their godmother and gone on a second honeymoon. Ten months later, Emily and Zooey were peeking into Spencer's crib. Their dad was a cinematographer, and someone had made a stuffed Super 8 for the baby. He just chewed on it when it was in reach. "Gross," Zooey said. But Emily stuck her finger through the bars and Spencer held on tight.

Spencer's earliest memory is of tormenting Zooey. "How come you didn't get sunburned?" she asked Emily, pressing her finger into her arm over and over and leaving white fingerprints. Emily, with a brand new driver's license, had been forced to escort Zooey to a scouting event in the park the day before. Spencer was 5 and still knew that Zooey was awful at remembering to reapply sunscreen.

"I told you," Emily said, pausing to lick her vanilla ice cream cone. "I'm an alien." She made the cross-eyed face she always made to spook Zooey.

"But Spencer and I outnumber you now!" Zooey said, obviously proud of herself. Spencer crossed his eyes and Zooey shrieked and ran away.

Spencer was always closest to Emily.

Zooey had been forced into the scouts because they were new in Summerlin. Zooey would never give up her rose-colored memories of Los Angeles before the move, and it was inevitable that she'd go back. Spencer didn't remember anything except the palm tree that had been outside of his bedroom window. And once he met Ryan, his whole life was in Nevada.

Spencer first remembers Emily's bitchface coming out when he was 10. Emily was 21 and home for her last spring break, mostly fighting with their parents about whether they would pay her rent if she moved to LA to put her theater degree to some use. Ryan had called the kids' phone, using the whispering tone that meant he was hiding up the attic stairs. Spencer had come down to the den afterwards, already sniffling. He wasn't as good at hiding his fear as Emily yet. "Em'ly? Can we go get Ryan? His dad hit him."

Emily was a force to be reckoned with then. She put her shoes on and got her keys, then took Spencer's hand and stormed out of the house. She banged on the door of the Rosses' house until Mr. Ross opened the door. He looked scary, big and obviously drunk, madder than Spencer had ever seen anyone. Spencer shrunk back, but Emily stepped forward and pulled herself up. Her eyes cast around the hall until she saw Ryan, hiding in the darkness by the closet. "Get your things. You're coming home with us." Mr. Ross didn't yell at Emily, he just glared and she glared back and Ryan scampered off. He returned less than a minute later with the bag he never unpacked. He slid under his dad's arm, flinching a little, then he took Emily's hand. Mr. Ross took a deep breath and Spencer was sure he was going to hit Emily, but she just sneered. "Give us a call when you're ready to come and get him." And at that subtle invocation of their mother, the woman Emily inherited this protective streak from, Mr. Ross deflated. Emily turned and dragged the boys back to the house.

When they got back and Emily deposited them in the kitchen for hot chocolate, the bruises from his father visible on Ryan's arm, her mother looked at her with something like pride before she started fussing.

Ryan was more fond of Zooey. Ryan started to notice girls right when Zooey decided she wanted to be alternative, quit college after one semester to come home, take guitar lessons and write in Moleskin journals. He loitered by her open bedroom door until she noticed him. "Hey, Ryan!"

He shifted nervously. "Hey, Zooey. Um…" He shoved a CD case at her. "I made you a mix."

"Hey," she said, sitting up on the bed. She had the same flowery, Laura Ashley bedroom she'd picked out of a catalog at 9. Ryan sat on her desk chair. Ryan at 10 would have crawled up beside her and pointed out everything with his perpetually sticky fingers. Now, at 13, he was hiding behind new long bangs, a little pink in the cheeks whenever Zooey was around. He handed the black case over. He'd written the tracks on the little insert in the neatest handwriting he could manage.

"Doors, Joy Division, this is good stuff!" She smiled and Ryan ducked his head and blushed.

"Thanks. It's just stuff I've been listening to lately."

"Very good taste, little man!"

That remark would ring in his ears until she was thirty.

"Emily, Emily, Emily," Spencer said, kicking the back of her seat in the car. She was home again; she drove back from LA every few weeks to do laundry and stock up on leftovers. She was taking Ryan and Spencer for their first taste of falafel, since she'd convinced Zooey to go vegetarian, which meant Ryan _had_ to go vegetarian, and was subsequently living on the veggie sandwich from Port 'O Subs.

"No, Spencer, and if you don't quit kicking me, I'm throwing you out of the car."

Spencer pouted. "But it would be so cool! We could be a band, you and me and Ryan and Zooey!"

"Spence, I am not learning to play the bass." Later, when they were eating in this falafel shop, Spencer picking at his pita, she touched his arm. "Spence, I know you got the best of intentions, but you're boys. You want to have awesome fun boy times. Zooey and I are grown-ups. We have to worry about boring shit like paying the rent and trying to get jobs. You guys should get some more of your friends and start a band. I bet it would be awesome." Spencer twisted his mouth up, but Emily just smiled.

When he sent her the first Summer League recording, she'd called back and talked to him for half an hour about how powerful his drumming was.

Ryan always went alone to see the first possible matinee of Zooey's movies. Spencer didn't bug him for it, even though it was kind of creepy the way Ryan was fixated on his sister. Ryan was working hard to cultivate an air of effortless cool now, so when Zooey came home, he hung around her, but didn't talk a lot. Zooey worked just as hard to be cool, so Spencer left them to it and he and Brendon worked on songs. He'd told Emily once that Brendon was the most brilliant person he'd ever met.

Panic! at the Disco never had a lawyer look at their first Decaydance contract. Here's why Spencer wasn't worried: after Ryan had done some sketchy shit and Pete Wentz had texted to say he was buying a plane ticket to Vegas, Spencer had called Emily to let her know the good news. By the time Pete rolled up to their practice space at Gramma's, Emily was ensconced in the corner armchair, glaring at him. She made it abundantly clear in surprisingly few words what a bad idea it would be for Pete to fuck over her brother, and Pete seemed sufficiently terrified.

When Panic came through Los Angeles, they always stayed with Emily. Ryan wanted to stay with Zooey, but that would be hanging around her too-cool friends and being treated like kids with a hobby. Emily genuinely thought they were talented and came to every show, then coddled them like a mom back at her one bedroom apartment. They'd throw their sleeping bags down on the floor where there was just enough room for the four of them to pile up between the couch and the tv, and Brendon would chat with Emily until he fell asleep.

Zack stayed with them once at Emily's, but Spencer's not sure where he slept.

  
Jon met Emily and Zooey the day he joined Panic! at the Disco. But the next time they came through LA, on their first headlining tour, Zooey and Jon had hit it off, talking in low tones in a corner of the dressing room, then disappearing during the afterparty. Ryan looked wounded when Jon texted to say he'd meet up with them in the morning, and he was shaking with something between rage and melancholy when they got in the car. Brendon fell right to sleep, exhausted and a little sniffly, but Spencer had listened from the hallway while Emily talked Ryan down in her bedroom. "Listen to me, sweetie. It's not anything about you that made it not happen for you and Zooey. But you're our little brother, almost as much as Spencer is. We've known you since you were six." Ryan nodded and tilted up against Emily, letting her hug him one last time.

Spencer suspects that that's when things started to change. There was liquor after that, and pot. Ryan started to change again, became a new person again, listened to the Beatles and bought vests. Stopped seeing Zooey's movies. They went out on the Honda Civic tour and Ryan started hanging out with Alex Greenwald. Zack would park Brendon and Spencer in the bus with Guitar Hero and go looking for Ryan. Spencer worried, because he couldn't not.

Emily was filming the night they were playing in LA, so she came to the afternoon press event instead. When she saw him, playing the bongos, unshaven, unshowered, bloated from the beer on the rider, he could swear she started to cry. But everything felt like it was falling apart, so he couldn't deal with it.

Brendon texted Emily from JFK. It was their third airport of the day, fifteen hours away from where they'd woken up in Johannesburg. "Our flight gets in at 4:30. Can you pick up Spencer?" Her response was only "y".

As soon as Spencer got into the car and Emily pulled away from the curb, he started sobbing. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him cry, so as soon as they were far enough from the airport that she could, Emily pulled over, turned the car off, and just held him while he fell apart.

Two days later, after Zooey had come with ice cream and Pretty Pretty Princess ("You loved this when you were a kid!" "No, I didn't. I just had two older sisters who made me play it.") and they'd stayed up all night watching Designing Women on DVD ("Why do you even own this?" "Goodie bag. I think. Or gag gift?"), Brendon called. "Can I come see Spencer yet? I miss him, and I'll even bring breakfast!" After a quick silent conversation with Spencer, Emily told him that he was always welcome.

"So, it's just you and Brendon now?" she asked. They hadn't talked about the future yet.

"Yeah," Spencer said, rearranging her junk drawer. "We're talking about getting a place out here, moving in together."

It probably should have been obvious, but when she opened the door and Brendon caught sight of Spencer, his eyes glowing, and Spencer smiled, really smiled, for the first time in a week, that's when Emily understood.


End file.
